[System Alert: 1 hour remaining in the mission. Host, please complete the objective immediately or the system will self-destruct.]
Atiste was shocked.
What the hell?
Didn’t there used to be about 2 hours left?
Was time accelerated?
Or was the “anomaly” that the Eternal King spoke of actually happening?
Atiste immediately used the system to send a message to Eileen.
-I don’t know what happened, but the time has been cut short by an hour! You have to make Princess Lillian find a way to secure the mission objective right now!
Eileen heard this and immediately turned her gaze toward the Eternal King.
She stared at him with an accusatory look and said,
“Tell me, what is an ‘anomaly’?”
The Eternal King would not hide it, of course; in fact, he had been waiting for Eileen to ask.
He replied,
“It is Miss Lillian beside you.”
Eileen found this answer unexpected, but upon reflection, it made sense.
Solk, Soraka, and the others were still attempting to break through Dorechiut’s defense.
But neither lightning, brute force, nor the Invisible Man’s whirlwind could shake Dorechiut, who was chained to the cross, even in the slightest.
The Invisible Man unleashed his finishing move:
“Formless current, gather upon my body, pour into my blade, Violent Spiral!”
A powerful storm formed around the Invisible Man, and he leaped into the air, transforming into a vortex that clearly displayed the flickering light of high-speed rotating axe blades.
Seeing this, Solk also unleashed his ultimate technique.
Without a word, he placed his palm against his blade, decisively carving a bloody wound into it.
As The Destroyer touched Solk’s blood, it instantly burst into crimson flames.
“Accept the fires of hell, Blood Hell Lotus!”
Six blood-red lotus flowers bloomed around Solk, each turning into flame and floating about him.
The Invisible Man’s storm struck Dorechiut’s cross, shaking the seal on the ground.
Solk closed in on the cross, and with every slash of his blade, one blood lotus vanished.
He also successfully destroyed the connection between Dorechiut and the cross.
The leg chains that were previously unbreakable shattered under Solk’s six-fold strike.
Dorechiut’s legs were finally freed from the cross.
His upper body was now the only part still fixed to the structure.
He lost his composure slightly:
“You lot, what are you doing? Stop interfering with the connection between me and the Holy Sword!”
Seeing this, Soraka unleashed her special move as well.
“Surging Ice Soul Sky Flash!”
Her figure instantly vanished, leaving behind only several icy trails, freezing even the air wherever she passed.
Dorechiut’s body was instantly encased in ice.
A second later, eight ice spikes exploded outward from the center of his body, and Dorechiut spat out a mouthful of blood.
Even the blood he spat out froze into ice.
“His mana is interrupted! Now’s the time, kill him!” Eileen shouted a warning.
The Eternal King immediately confirmed with Lillian:
“‘The core’ is in his chest, right?”
“Yes!”
“Soul Chaos.”
The black sword and shield in the Eternal King’s hands merged into a single, black greatsword adorned with black spikes.
“Chaos Strike!”
The Eternal King gripped the sword with both hands, leaping high to slash at Dorechiut’s chest.
He sliced from the left shoulder, hitting the core in the chest precisely, and exited from the right abdomen.
The black-tainted blade severed Dorechiut’s body.
The “Blood Core” located in his chest was now exposed.
Lillian made a split-second decision; she dashed toward the core and reached out to grab it.
“Success!”
The moment she touched the Blood Core, she heard:
“Death, Whispers, Curses, Shatter, Doomsday, Gluttony, Strife, Endless, Abyss.”
Before her eyes were countless corpses,
Unending remains, Toppled giants, Sleeping gods, Limbs of the Demon Lord, The face of Buddha, Ragnarok…
She instinctively wanted to let go, but she forced herself to keep holding the core—
That was the item Lord Atiste needed!
She absolutely could not let go!
Eileen saw that Lillian’s eyes were bloodshot and her body was shrouded in a black aura, so she immediately shouted for Lillian to stop:
“Let go! Now is not the time to be touching that thing!”
-Eileen, do not do anything unnecessary.
Let her do it.
“But, Master…”
-Eileen, perhaps your chance of returning lies in this very act; do not miss it.
-Besides, my intuition tells me that my art piece will become even more radiant because of this!
Eileen was confused.
The Eternal King tried to pull Lillian away by reaching out with his backhand.
But he was repelled by the black aura.
“Impossible… How can I be repelled by chaos?”
The Eternal King stared in disbelief.
He had never encountered a situation like this.
Aside from immortal monsters, there existed a tiny number of immortal humans in this world.
It was not immortality in the true sense.
Rather, they obtained the ability to be “immortal” by signing contracts with certain mediums and corresponding high-level existences.
The Eternal King was a contractor of Chaos.
He could gain a new life through the life sacrificed by the living, retaining all his memories—one could call it possession or reincarnation.
Thus, he had seen countless strange rituals and various phenomena that ordinary people rarely witnessed.
But this was truly the first time he had seen a phenomenon like this.
A connection severed by the power of Chaos had been touched by a girl with no mana, and the Eternal King could not interfere in the link between her and the target—specifically, objects severed by a Chaos Strike were temporarily isolated in a “Chaos Space,” meaning the Blood Core should have been “cut off from the world.”
Yet, to his surprise, Lillian had grabbed the isolated Blood Core with ease.
Lillian remained under the control of the massive influx of information; she could not hear anything from the outside world now, and everything she felt seemed to come from this core…
When Marishka saw the scene before her, she shouted toward “Rolshka”:
“Regardless of who you are, please seize the ‘Holy Sword’ now! This is the only chance!”
Upon hearing this, “Rolshka” locked his gaze on the “Holy Sword” behind the cross.
He glanced at Lillian, then at Dorechiut, and finally at the Holy Sword.
He made a quick decision: secure the Holy Sword!
“Rolshka” leaped up and bolted toward the sword.
He grabbed at thin air.
The “Holy Sword” was being held in Dorechiut’s hand, and he had flown into the air with it.
At this moment, Dorechiut had “returned to his original state,” revealing his true form.
His ragged clothing remained, but his appearance had shifted entirely into another shape.
Or perhaps, this was his true form all along:
Pale skin, humanoid physique, eyes like a lizard, devil horns atop his head, a cold expression, pointed ears, and a pair of bat-like wings on his back.
Furthermore, he showed no restraint, allowing his mana to surge outward.
“A member of the Vampire Clan?”
The Eternal King felt a headache coming on.
He had encountered many powerful enemies, including those at the Demigod level.
But the one thing he absolutely did not want to face was a Transcendent of the Vampire Clan…